When I was first asked to review this book, I thought
“should be pretty straightforward as most of the book probably deals with sake”
and I recently studied for the WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust) Level 1
Award in Sake so it shouldn’t take a lot of time describing sake
production and sake based cocktails. Then I quickly realized that I
still had quite a bit to learn not just about sake but Japanese drinks
in general.
Co-authors Stephen Lyman and Chris Bunting also took a
roundabout process to complete The Complete Guide to Japanese Drinks as it
primarily was accomplished online as the two only met face-to-face for about 24
hours in the north of England. Native New Yorker Stephen Lyman was becoming one
of the acknowledged Western experts on Japanese shochu and Okinawan awamori
and he persisted in persuading former Tokyo denizen and UK native Chris Bunting
to partner in the comprehensive guide to Japanese drinks after Bunting
published Drinking Japan. Finally, after several years Bunting relented and this
online collaboration came to fruition.
The Complete Guide to Japanese Drinks in broken down into
two general sections, the first covering Native Japanese Alcohol (washu)
Traditions including sake, shochu, awamori and umeshu
with the second covering Western Alcohol (yoshu) Traditions in Japan
including whisky, beer and Japanese wine. Surprisingly, the sake chapter
isn’t the longest section yielding instead to shochu.
Japan’s Drinking
Culture
The preface starts with Japan’s drinking culture
explaining that it’s intimately tied to rice cultivation which started more
than 3000 years ago in Kyushu. The earliest rudimentary sake brewing started
soon after rice cultivation with ordinary citizens developing a taste for
alcohol even if the commoner couldn’t afford the officially sanctioned sake.
And though home brewing was prohibited, commoners found ways to brew their own
alcohol with villagers often creating elaborate warnings with bells, whistles
or pot clanging whenever a strange official-looking stranger visited the
village. And though the government attempted to restrict or even prohibit
alcohol consumption through the centuries, the mass population conveniently
ignored or circumvented government controls on alcohol.
Sake, the
Soul of Japan
Though sake is commonly referred to as rice wine,
creating sake is more akin to brewing beer as yeast can’t simply create
alcohol from starch but first need the starch converted to simple sugars by
molds (koji) though the earliest form of sake, kuchikamizake
(mouth-chewed sake) depended on salivary enzymes to convert the starches
to sugar. I, for one, am very thankful more modern production using koji
starters became the norm instead of saliva. The authors do point out that
because sake production was considered a gift from the gods, Shinto
priests original recruited virginal girls to do the chewing and spitting at kuchikamizake
festivals and this tradition persisted in Okinawa until the 1930s.
By the 6th century, koji mold became
the standard process to convert starches to sugars though religious
institutions held a legal monopoly on the production of koji. However,
in 1444, the 340 sake producers complained about the inflated prices the
Kitano Shrine charged and that their supply couldn’t meet the demand and
revolted against the shogunate which eventually relented changing the sake
landscape forever.
Without getting into the detailed descriptions that Lyman
and Bunting provide for the complete process of sake production, sake
classification and commonly available styles of sake, I’ll simply
highlight the information in a nutshell. Basically, gourmet varieties of short
grain rice are first milled to remove the outer layer then steamed. As the rice
cools, the koji or mold (Aspergillus oryzae) starter is lightly
sprinkled over the cooling rice and as the koji culture multiplies and
start converting rice starch to sugars, more rice and koji starter are
added then eventually the finished koji rice, more rice, water and shubo
or moto (the yeast mother that converts sugars to ethyl alcohol) is combined
over days in the fermentation vessel and once thoroughly mixed are left to
ferment over 2 to 5 weeks.
And just for your information if you plan on visiting the
Motherland or plan on visiting sake bars, here are several terms in the sake
world and what they mean:
Zojoshu – The cheapest of sake simply meant
to get you drunk. Basically the “jug wine” of the sake world.
Futsushu – Most of the sake consumed from
“table” wine quality to extraordinary quality.
Honjozo – Premium sake where rice grains
are polished down to at least 70% with added brewer’s alcohol added to extract flavor
compounds which creates a lighter body in the final sake.
Junmai – Previously required rice polished down to
70% but no minimum polishing requirements now but without any added brewer’s
alcohol but still considered premium sake.
Ginjo – Premium sake where rice grains are
polished down to at least 60%. If labelled simply as ginjo, brewer’s
alcohol was added, if labelled as junmai ginjo, no brewer’s alcohol was
added.
Daiginjo – Premium sake where rice grains are
polished down to at least 50%. Again, if labelled simply as daiginjo,
brewer’s alcohol was added, if labelled as junmai daiginjo, no brewer’s
alcohol was added.
Therefore, honjozo to ginjo to daiginjo
go from fuller bodied to lighter, fragrant sake and any sake
labelled as junmai will have a fuller body than corresponding non-junmai
sake.
Tokubetsu – Premium sake polished to at
least 60% with special processing not usually used by the brewmaster (toji).
Genshu – Undiluted sake with alcohol
ranging from 17% to 20% alcohol. Most sake are diluted down to 15% to
16% alcohol.
Nigori – Unfiltered or lightly filtered sake
that appears opaque to downright cloudy.
Koshu - Sometimes aged in wooden barrels to
achieve a Port-like richness, sometimes simply aged at sub-zero temperatures to
create new flavor sensations.
Japan’s Best Kept
Secret
Shochu or Japanese distilled spirits unlike sake
is not just created from rice bit also sweet potatoes, barley or a mixture of
all three or simply distilled from the expended solids from sake production
or sake kasu. Shochu production also employs the use of a koji
starter to convert starches to sugars and like sake production,
primarily uses white koji for this process though shochu creates
the initial fermentation product via a two-step fermentation process. Most
sweet potato based shochu is distilled to the high 30 percentile alcohol
while rice and barley shochu attain alcohol in the low 40 percentile.
However, most shochu are diluted down to the mid 20 percentile
especially Stateside as any alcoholic beverage above 24% are subject to higher
alcohol taxation along with stricter regulations.
Because of the higher alcohol level, shochu is
usually enjoyed on the rocks or diluted with ice water to reduce some of the
alcohol “bite” though enthusiasts also enjoy shochu straight or even
mixed with hot water. My personal experience imbibing shochu gives me
the impression that rice based shochu is the lightest and sweet potato
versions the heartiest and funkiest with barley based shochu somewhere
between the two.
Shochu’s
Distant Cousin
Several hundred miles south in the original Ryukyu
kingdom, shochu’s cousin was created with a similar process though it
was produced primarily with rice and not the usual short grain variety for
daily meals but the long-grain Indica rice imported from Thailand. Therefore,
Okinawa’s awamori is thought to have its origins in Thailand’s lao
khao even if lao khao employs sticky, short grain rice though both
employ black koji mold for sugar production.
And unlike shochu production, awamori is
only fermented once and uses the black koji mold as this kurokoji
produces higher acid levels which inhibit other organisms from growing in the
brew especially since Okinawa’s temperate climate fosters the growth of a wide
range of microorganisms which invariably can give the finished awamori
off flavors.
Awamori also is frequently aged in the solera
system whereby older batches of awamori are mixed with younger awamori
as the older awamori is consumed from their traditional clay pots.
Unfortunately, during World War II, batches of awamori well over 100
years old were destroyed and most of the black koji starters destroyed
with them. Despite restarting the distilleries since the war, only 40-something
active distilleries remain.
The traditional way to drink awamori if from
thimble-like cups called chibugwa from carafes called gari-gari.
A ceramic ball in the gari-gari remains silent when the carafe is full
but makes a “gari-gari” sound as it empties signaling the need for a new
filled carafe. Now days, awamori also served in glass tumblers or brandy
sniffers and diluting it with equal parts of chilled water or on the rocks is
the norm.
Yoshu
Ever since Commodore Perry and his fleet of black ships
opened Japan to Western society along with 109 gallons of American whisky on
his return, the Japanese developed a taste this golden spirit. Some 20 or so
years later in 1879, a chemist named Joichi Takamine grew koji spores on
wheat bran to create one of the first Japanese created Western whiskies.
Several years later, Eigashima Shuzo experimented with koji on barley
then distilled the fermented brew immediately placing it into barrels and White
Oak whisky was born. Unfortunately, none of their product or distillery
survived so no one can say for certain that it was Japan’s first whisky. What
is known about Japan’s whisky culture is that in 1923, a collaboration of
Masataka Taketsuru and Shinjiro Torii created a whisky culture that exists
until today and set the framework for future Japanese whisky distilleries with
whiskies that rival the best whiskies in the world. Taketsuru was a chemist who
was sent to Scotland by the head of the Settsu Liquor Company to learn the
secrets of that Scottish “water of life”, scotch. He even married a Scottish
woman, Rita Cowan and after working at several Scottish distilleries, returned
to Japan in 1920. Because Japan was in a recession, he didn’t get very far
opening his own distillery until he met visionary businessman, Shinjiro Torii
who opened Suntory’s Yamazaki distillery in 1923… yes, the same distillery that
still produces Yamazaki, Hakushu and Hibiki whiskies that can cost as much as
$9000 per bottle for the 25 year old version. The authors provide a much more
detailed timeline as well as subsequent distilleries that entered the market
after Suntory.
However, the Motherland distilleries create much more than
their own versions of scotch. In the past few years, gin has gained in
popularity with Japanese distilleries adding the traditional juniper berries
but also adding Japanese herbs and flavor agents such as shiso, green
tea, ginger, bamboo leaves, cypress wood, yuzu and sansho pepper.
Toriaezu Nama
Translated as “a draft beer to start”, the authors sadly
highlight that though the Japanese pay a great attention to detail when
creating sake, shochu, awamori and whisky and though beer
has been the top selling alcoholic beverage in Japan for decades, beer culture
still predominantly is limited simply to refreshing, lager types of beer. In
other words, the mass-produced brands from Asahi, Kirin and Suntory that you
can find at most supermarkets. In fact, the dominance of the mega-brands was
fostered by the Japanese government who initially imposed minimum production
volumes back in 1906 of 47,500 gallons which effectively wiped out smaller
brewers.
They do note that there are craft brewed operations that have
had a resurgence ever since the government lowered the minimum production
requirements in 1994 so it’s not uncommon to see bottles of Hitachino, Coedo
and Echigo at your local Marukai market though for the most part, the average
Japanese consumer simply wants a brew that’s light and refreshing.
Western Wine
The final chapter describes Japan’s history with wine,
namely wines created from grapes in the European tradition highlighting one
individual; Hikosuke Isonaga, the son of a Satsuma samurai who adopted the
alias Kanae Nagasawa who was educated in Scotland then eventually moved to New
York to create wine for the Brotherhood of New Life commune which eventually
moved to Santa Rosa Valley in California. The commune started the Fountain
Grove Winery which at one point was the largest winery in the US even exporting
wines to Europe and Japan. However, with Prohibition in 1919 along with the
anti-Japan law in 1920, operations came to a halt and Nagasawa simply marketed
grape juice though he did give warnings to purchasers of the grape juice how
not to let the juice ferment into wine.
Nagasawa passed in 1934 and was all but forgotten until President
Reagan mentioned him in a speech to the Japanese Diet and the city of Santa
Rosa honored him with a bronze bust in their municipal office and named a park in
his honor.
Though Japanese wine now uses traditional European grapes
in production like chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon, Japanese wineries also
highlight what is considered Japan’s native grape, the koshu as part of
their regular wine production. In 2014 and again in 2016, a koshu based
wine won the gold medal at the London-based Decanter World Wine Awards.
I also highlighted Japanese wines in my March 2016 column
“Wines from the Motherland”.
Final Chapters
The final chapters of “Japanese Drinks” concludes with a
section on Japanese cocktails highlighting the career of the father of Japanese
bartending, Tatsuro Yamazaki who started as a 25-year-old in 1945 and continued
to work until he passed away in 2016. He quipped 2 years earlier that when he
originally planned on retiring at 70, he planned to visit all the bars of his
former students but then realized that most his trainees themselves had already
retired.
The book ends with a listing of several bars both in
Japan and Stateside that continue in the Japanese tradition including Ippuku in
downtown Berkeley.
The Last Word
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